Bolton: Trump Miscalculated, Wants to Exit War with Iran

John Bolton, former US National Security Advisor, announced that US President Donald Trump “wants to get out of this war.”

According to the Iranian news agency Tasnim on Monday, Bolton said that it is impossible to know for certain what Trump expected regarding the course of events, but he explained that if Trump believed the operation would be quick and easy, similar to a possible scenario for capturing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, “then this assessment was wrong.”

He affirmed that any serious assessment of Iran would have shown that dealing with it is complex, “whether the objective is limited or related to its nuclear program.”

Bolton stressed that such operations cannot be considered easy if the true objective is to effectively stop this threat. He also pointed out that limiting oneself to temporary strikes, or what Israel calls “mowing the grass,” is not a permanent solution, “because it necessitates repeating operations later.”

Bolton concluded that eliminating the Iranian threat, even if limited to the nuclear program, “has always been a difficult task.”

Politico had reported, citing a senior Gulf official, that the US president might offer new concessions regarding Iran because he wants to end the war.